


Levi, the Tea Thief

by blindmasks



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Levi (Shingeki no Kyojin) Has OCD, Tea, mostly anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-21
Updated: 2019-10-21
Packaged: 2020-12-27 06:07:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21113939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blindmasks/pseuds/blindmasks
Summary: “Where is the tea?” Erwin says, staring down at Levi. Levi, who has the most perfect look of impassive confusion on his face.“What tea?” he has the audacity to ask.





	Levi, the Tea Thief

**Author's Note:**

> This started as a section in Splinter but I decided it works better as a one shot.

It has been five years now since Erwin first saw Levi in the underground, and in that time Levi has acclimated to life above ground quite a bit. While he is still known as wild and violent by most of the nobility and much of the military, Levi is generally quite calm and levelheaded, to the point where it's easy to forget his chaotic, criminal background in the underground. He is a very different man than the wild, insolent teenager Erwin had found planning to murder him.

That is all to say, Erwin sometimes forgets that Levi is a damn good thief.

“Where is the tea?” Erwin says, staring down at Levi in the mess hall. Erwin is standing, arms crossed. Levi is sitting with Eld and Gunther and has the most perfect look of impassive confusion on his face.

“What tea?”

“You know very well what tea,” Erwin says.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Levi says, completely expressionless.

Erwin had made the mistake of sharing with Levi that their usual shipment of black tea had not arrived. There was apparently a shortage, and they would not be getting anymore for another month. There was only a bit left, and they would run out by the end of the week. The look of serious alarm on Levi’s face had been comical at the time.

“I should have you cleaning the kitchens all week for this,” Erwin says without thinking.

Levi smiles - that smug, barely there smile with one eyebrow raised. “If that’s what you want, all you have to do is ask.”

Erwin closes his eyes for a second. This has not been a problem in years. When Levi first joined and was still a recruit, he had been incredibly disrespectful and disobedient. And Erwin, along with all of Levi’s other commanding officers, had struggled to find a punishment that would _actually_ punish him.

Levi loved to clean. Which was not apparent at first, and so his officers got increasingly frustrated as cleaning did not seem to deter future behavior _at all_. Levi was in better shape than any other soldier, and he relished physical exercise. If he was made to run laps all day then that would be what he did – Erwin didn’t think he particularly liked running laps all day but that seemed to be more about boredom. They had tried benching him – making him sit out of training or making him only do conditioning rather than working with ODM gear. That clearly annoyed him but it became more bothersome than it was worth. If Levi was sitting out then he would simply provide rude and sarcastic commentary for the entire day.

After exhausting every type of punishment they could think of, one of his commanding officers finally had him whipped. It was a punishment that Erwin found distasteful and almost always unnecessarily cruel. He had not been consulted beforehand and even if he had been, there was not much Erwin could do without being accused of gross favoritism.

That had not ended well. It was immediately apparent that it was in fact an effective punishment – Levi was not immune to pain and after experiencing it once he clearly did not want a repeat – but afterwards Levi treated the officer which had ordered it with a personal vendetta. Gear went missing. A wire was set at her bedroom door made to trip her. She got food poisoning. None of it could be traced back to Levi but it was pretty clear who was behind it all.

If Erwin ever decided to have Levi whipped as a punishment himself then he didn’t think Levi would be quite so hateful, but he could certainly make Erwin’s life very, very difficult. Not to mention it would be quite a big breach of trust. Erwin is not going to have Levi whipped over some stolen tea though. No matter how frustrating he is.

“Levi, I _order you_ to return the tea,” Erwin says.

He waits. Levi keeps eye contact. He’s not quite glaring, but the look is annoyed. After several moments of the staring contest, Levi looks away and sighs. He gets up from the table to leave the mess hall.

The tea is miraculously returned by the next morning. Erwin knows that Levi has his own tea, but Levi drinks enough tea that supporting the habit without his mess hall rations will be expensive enough that he'll have to cut down on his consumption. Levi sulks all of the next day.

Erwin really thought that would be it. And then two days later several of his officers come to report missing items, all at once in the morning. Five boxes of soap, every uniform jacket they have in storage, a med kit, ten towels, all of the spoons in the entire damn building, and two reams of paper.

It is bizarre. It is also clearly meant to be found quickly. The thief is making no effort to hide the fact that the items have been stolen.

Erwin walks into Levi’s room without knocking.

Levi is sitting patiently with his ankles crossed on his bed, reading a pamphlet. There are five boxes, a bin of clothing, a med kit, stacked towels, a bucket of spoons, and two packages strewn around him.

“_Return them_,” Erwin says, and then slams the door. He takes one step and then turns around and opens it again. “That is in an order,” he adds, and then slams it again.

By the next morning, all of the items are mysteriously back in place. Erwin breathes a sigh of relief and, again, thinks the whole thing is over. Until he goes back to his office and can’t find his pen.

He knows he left it on his desk. He always leaves it on his desk. He has other pens of course, but this is his favorite. He spends several minutes searching for it before he pauses.

Erwin goes back to Levi’s room. Opens the door without knocking. Levi is sitting on his bed, idly flipping the pen between his fingers.

“_Levi_,” Erwin says.

Levi cocks his head like he doesn’t know _exactly_ why Erwin is there.

“This ends,” Erwin says. “Do you understand me? No more.”

Levi pauses, and then lets out a dramatic sigh. “Fine,” he says. Erwin steps forward and holds out his hand and Levi gives him the pen.

There are blissfully zero missing items the next day. Erwin is finally able to relax. The morning after that, he wakes up, gets dressed, and goes to put on his bolo tie.

It’s not there.

Erwin lets out a string of curses. He checks, just to be sure, the clothing that he’d changed out of the night before, but it remains missing.

_How the hell did he even get that, _Erwin thinks. Levi had to have picked the lock on Erwin’s door, snuck in while Erwin was asleep, and taken it. Or else he’d scaled the outside wall and gotten in through the window. Either way, Erwin doesn’t understand how he managed it all while Erwin was sleeping. He's not a heavy sleeper.

Erwin is fed up. He marches to Levi’s room, throws open the door for the third time, and sees, of course, his tie sitting on Levi’s desk.

He walks over, takes a breath, and calmly puts it back on. Levi watches from where he’s fitting on his harness. It reminds Erwin of when Levi was first a recruit - always testing boundaries to see just how much he could get away with. (The answer being, quite a lot actually). Levi’s got another damn smug look on his face now and Erwin turns towards him.

“Give me your tea,” Erwin says.

Levi looks at him. The smug look is falling. “What?”

“Give me. Your tea,” Erwin says.

“Excuse me?”

“I think I’ve made myself perfectly clear,” Erwin says. There’s a growing look of alarm followed by a scrambling panic on Levi’s face.

“Erwin –” Levi says.

“Your tea, Levi,” Erwin says.

There’s a moment where Erwin can see Levi’s mind spinning, trying to figure out a way out of the situation. “Erwin,” he starts again, like maybe he can placate him, his eyes going wider in an almost comical attempt to warrant mercy from Erwin.

Erwin turns and goes to the shelves next to Levi’s dresser. He only has to look inside two before he finds it. A fairly large stash, neatly organized. Levi watches in mild horror as Erwin takes all of it.

“You will get it back in one week,” Erwin says. “If anything else goes missing it will be two weeks. And don’t think I won’t come back and search your room again if I’ve found you’ve bought more.”

Erwin leaves, a grin on his face this time.

Levi is pointedly more snappish and short-tempered than usual, and no one can quite figure out why. He sulks the entire week, refusing to eat with Erwin like he would normally and staying in his room rather than doing work in Erwin’s office.

Two days into the week Erwin finds that one of the tins of tea leaves is mysteriously lower than it had been before. Erwin’s been checking them each night to make sure none of it goes missing. It’s a very small amount though, almost small enough not to be noticed. The same thing happens two days later, again a very small amount gone from a different tin this time.

Erwin lets it go, and Levi ends his short return to thievery.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! As always, comments make my day :)


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